There’s no hiding the fact that I have some bizarre interests. I’m obsessed with the Victorians, I can’t stop hand-sewing octokittens, and, most prominently, I’ve been known to keep Giant African Land Snails as pets – to the extent that I proudly answered to the epithet “Snail Girl” all through primary school. Now, I’ve always taken it without question that if you have an unusual interest, it will inevitably put off a certain proportion of people from wanting to become a friend or potential suitor. And that’s fine – that’s just how it is. But what I’ve never really thought about is: what exactly is it that they’re scared of?

My most recent charges, Herculine and Chevalier.

I think it’s an interesting question that I’d genuinely like to get to the bottom of. Are they worried I’ll refuse to talk about anything but snails? Or that I’ll bring snails to the date? Or do they equate unusual interests with being unstable / unpredictable / not very down to earth in the context of a relationship? I feel a bit conned by the latter explanation, because despite my unusual interests, but I’m actually a disappointingly boring and normal person deep down (as anyone who’s attempted to make me “go out” and “have fun” on a Saturday night will attest). In fact, maybe some people think having unusual interests means the person is boring – although I’d have thought the exact opposite!

Strawberry Fields (2012)

Still more infuriatingly, how come some people seem to be able to “get away” with being strange more than others? I had a friend who was far more bizarre than me really, but people never seemed to notice as much. Are certain “kinds” of bizarreness more acceptable? I think appearance has a lot to do with it – I’ve seen countless films where the main characters’ behaviour would have got them sectioned was it not for their aesthetic value. The protagonist’s beautiful, arty, pathologically manipulative sister in the 2012 British film Strawberry Fields is a scarily realistic example.

I think gender comes into it too. This articlediscusses the way in which eccentric men tend to be labelled as “visionary” or “genius”, while women are often dismissed as “mad” or “quirky”, or filed under the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl stereotype. And it’s something I’ve personally experienced a lot as a performer, as well – there was a whole year when one compere of an open mic night never used any other adjective to describe me apart from “crazy”, but would describe even the most randomly surreal male acts far more thoughtfully. I found this quite dismissive, and a bit of a cop out, too, because although my songs often have unusual subjects, if you listen properly there’s method in the madness – in fact, I think they’re often quite well thought-out and witty (but then I would). As the above article says, “To call stories like this quirky is to admit that you haven’t really listened”.

I’ve forgiven him now, though!

I’ve also been pondering about where people’s interests come from in the first place. My theory is that once they reach a certain age, people’s brains want to learn deeply about something, so simply latch onto the first vaguely suitable thing that presents itself at the time. That’s why a lot of people’s interests can seem very random. Of course, there’s obviously a logic behind some people’s interests: family / friend influences and wish fulfillment are the most prominent factors that come to my mind. I know that my interest in snails is at least partly due to my fervent childhood desire to own a horse – this being impossible, my mind simply latched itself onto the nearest garden animal that I quite liked, as a more practical pet on which to focus my affections.

I think fashions work in a similar way – society seems to simply latch onto the first random thing that people might conceivably be interested in. This is the only possible explanation for the nation’s all-consuming obsession with pigeon breeding in the 1850s (to the extent that Charles Darwin was advised to re-write The Origin of Species to be on this subject – and the opening chapter is, indeed, about pigeon breeding. The craze was also responsible for our modern infestations of town pigeons. Thanks, Victorians).

This is why I’ve always pronounced myself “not cool enough to be a geek”. In geek culture, there seem to be certain things that it’s cool for people to be interested in (sci fi, comics, anime etc.) and other things that are not so cool (snails). But why one thing, and not another? Is there some kind of logic behind it, or is it just random?

I really would be interested to hear your thoughts and theories on this matter. Where did your interests come from? What runs through your head when you find out someone has an unusual interest? In fact, maybe all this will become a new INTEREST of mine!!!!!!!!!!!

I spend quite a lot of time thinking about the concept of evil. I’m not really sure why. Of course, everybody loves a good villain. But it’s deeper than that – how do we define evil? By actions or intentions? Is evil circumstantial, or objective and immutable?

I seem to be one of the few people who still suspects that some people are simply born evil. I don’t know why, I just get the feeling that there are people who, regardless of circumstances or the era they’re born into, will default to evil acts. Obviously, there are also thousands of people out there who are forced into evil acts by their circumstances (as the recent and controversial Derren Brown episode, where ordinary, law-abiding citizens were manipulated to the point where they would push a man to his death, will attest – although its authenticity remains suspect in my cynical eye). But there are also people who seem to perform evil acts out of some deeper urge. So how true is my assumption?

Historically, the idea that people are evil simply because they’re born evil was by no means unusual – in fact, up until the early 20th century, it was the default. It’s only recently that the idea of the sympathetic villain has come to the fore – in the past, this would have been seen as scandalously morally ambiguous. Contrast the original “penny dreadful” serialization of Sweeney Todd, “A String of Pearls”, with the modern-day Tim Burton film adaptation. The Sweeney Todd of 1846’s motivations were seemingly limited to greed and the sheer joy of being evil. In a predominantly Christian society, there was an obvious moralising purpose to this: he was simply a force of the devil, over which the force of good must (and invariably did) prevail.

But, without the knowledge of genetics and psychology that we take for granted today, there really was an idea that people were born to an evil “type”, and this was often associated with physical appearance. In the 1840s crazes such as phrenology were all the rage, and the shape of the head was meant to reflect traits as far-ranging as secretiveness, parental love and the perception of colour. Sweeney Todd himself was described as “a long, low-jointed, ill-put-together sort of fellow, with an immense mouth, and such huge hands and feet, that he was, in his way, quite a natural curiosity.” Such unrefined features were commonly associated with evil (which had ugly connotations regarding race, social class, and a whole host of other pre-Victorian prejudices).

(As an aside, Dracula caused controversy by being one of the first attractive villains – although the deeply homophobic author, Bram Stoker [who, incidentally, stole Oscar Wilde’s first girlfriend, Florence Balcombe], appeared to have scored a bit of an own goal there. The sensuous, beguiling depiction of Dracula that has set the hearts of readers fluttering ever since was originally intended as a portrayal of unattractive, immoral un-manliness.)

The modern film adaptation of Sweeney Todd concocts a sympathetic back-story for our antagonist, involving an evil, wife-stealing Alan Rickman and 15 years of forced labour in an Australian penal colony (which would certainly explain Jonny Depp’s preposterous accent). With psychologists like Freud introducing the idea that past experiences build who we are today, modern audiences see a sympathetic villain as more believable. And, I suspect, we like to feel the thrill of moral ambiguity that comes with sympathising with man capable of slicing the jugulars of unsuspecting customers with a shaving razor and then baking them into pies. Such a questioning of morals would be unheard of in the Victorian era.

In fact, I’ve always thought that the Victorian view of evil was less moral – if someone’s evil out of the sheer joy of being evil, it implies that there’s joy to being evil, and maybe even that that’s what we’d all become if we yielded to our temptations or “let the devil in”. It gives evil an attractive allure, something that Robert Lewis Stevenson captured all too well in Jekyll and Hyde. A tortured, unhappy antagonist gives a far superior moral message. But that’s not the pure, unadulterated evil that I’m talking about.

The closest real-life example of pure evil in today’s society is, of course, the psychopath, whose absence of fear and empathy is caused by an underactive amygdala (the region of the brain responsible for memory, decision-making and emotional reactions). Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test suggests that this ruthlessness is what enables business and political leaders to rise to the top. In fact, the book estimates that people in positions of power are four times more likely to be psychopaths than the average population – in other words, those responsible for shaping society and building the world we live in are not the same kind of people as us – society is disproportionately geared towards psychopaths. (No wonder I feel so discombobulated all the time.)

“Aha!” I thought, flicking through its pages, “I was right! Some people really are just born evil!” But what the book doesn’t mention is that even a condition as extreme as psychopathy can be brought about – or at least exacerbated – by early childhood experiences. One of my friends knows a social worker who is under strict instructions to keep an eye out for any babies or young children not receiving enough physical affection – because apparently, a lack of hugging can turn you into a psychopath! I always knew hugging was good for the soul.

So why do I still believe in the idea of pure evil? Maybe because I find it so impossible to empathise with unrepentant evildoers, or even to see them as real people like me. As first, I was worried this failure of empathy meant that I myself was a psychopath – but Jon Ronson’s book was quick to reassure me that if I was worried I was a psychopath, that meant I almost definitely wasn’t one – because if I was one, I wouldn’t care. And that’s what makes them so scary: it’s like there’s no way you can reach them. If you try to tell them they’re doing wrong, they don’t believe you, and even if they do believe you, they don’t care. As Neil Gaiman said in his latest anthology, Trigger Warning, “the people who scare me are the ones who are certain of their own rightness”.

My mom, who is an accomplished jewellery maker, gave me the idea for this post when she attempted to get back to her work after two weeks on holiday. “Before I went away,” she bemoaned, “I was coming up with some really good ideas, but now I’m making nothing but stupid art!” She’s back on form now, as is clearly evidenced on her Etsy shop, but it did get me thinking.

Around the same time, I was clearing out some old things when I found a home-recorded DVD with the ominous title “A Matter of Mike and Death” scrawled across it in my own spidery hand. Intrigued, I decided to watch it, and broke into delighted laughter when I recognised a short film I’d made with some uni friends more than half a decade ago, and completely forgotten until now. It’s probably one of my last examples of wilfully creating Stupid Art.

A Matter of Mike and Death is an American high school movie version of Macbeth, where a popular girl attempts to help the new guy, Mike, rise through the ranks by causing those of higher status to commit “social suicide”. It’s a funny idea, along the lines of 10 Things I Hate About You (the American high school movie version of The Taming of the Shrew), but the short film itself is frankly ridiculous. It takes the form of a spoof trailer for the overall film idea, and was made to be entered into a local short film competition as a joke. (Looking back, I can’s see the logic behind entering something into a competition as a joke – they’re just going to watch the first few seconds of it, think it isn’t very good, and discard it, and then you don’t win the competition. How hilarious.)

Still, it seemed a good idea at the time, and gave rise to some utterly ridiculous footage. To protect the innocent, I’m not going to upload the film, but the following stills will give you a good idea of the acting and production quality (and, for anyone involved, do let me know if you want me to send you a copy!)

Looking back on it now, what surprises me most was the sheer number of people who agreed to be involved in such a ludicrous scheme. It’s not like we had unlimited time on our hands – we were all doing degrees, after all – and it’s not like we had any pretensions that the judges would unexpectedly label us secret geniuses – so why did we do it? Just for the hell of it, it seems!

But even A Matter of Mike and Death had a sort of excuse for making it, albeit a flimsy one. I’d have to go back a long time to find something that was made for absolutely no purpose at all. Even my infamous Nuisance Letters were written with half an eye on performing them at open mics, or getting them printed in magazines.

In fact, the last truly Stupid Art I can remember making with my friends was a series of spoof mash-ups of blockbuster films at the time – “Darth of the Rings”, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of the AzCarribean” – which were recorded on a proper hand-held video camcorder, so that must have been a long time ago! We’d laugh our heads off writing the scripts and using deliberately ridiculous “special effects” like “flying” objects suspended on fishing wire, or filming with the camera on its side to imitate climbing up a vertical cliff. We didn’t want it to go any further than that – in fact, the idea of anyone else seeing me dressed as Harry Potter in a wet suit and flippers horrified me – the joy in making it was enough.

But, with time, the pressure to be doing something useful – something productive – takes hold, especially in art, which is typically taken less seriously. And soon, all the plays I wrote were written to be performed, all the songs I wrote were written to be released on albums, all my craft projects were made to be sold. Which isn’t an intrinsically bad thing – you can’t make a living without turning your skills to useful ends – and many people would say that it’s the Stupid Art that builds up experience and gradually evolves into the more “serious” and formal art I create now. In fact, perhaps Stupid Art is the transition between the make-believe games of childhood and the formally structured contexts of professional art.

In 2013 took part in a scientific survey on imaginary friends, run by doctors Karen Majors and Ed Baines of the Department of Psychology and Human Development, University of London. I can’t find the original study online, but this article is what inspired me to take part. The research group were setting out to prove that, contrary to previous assumptions, children with imaginary friends were not the stereotypically introverted outsiders but, instead, naturally sociable children who, because of their gregariousness, felt the need to create imaginary playmates when real ones weren’t available. This tied in with my own childhood experience – I loved playing with my friends, but as an only child, I also spent a lot of time alone.

The results, when they came out, were very interesting. As well as 66% of imaginary friends acting as a playmate when real ones were absent, 20% of imaginary friends served the purpose of wish fulfilment (I really, really wanted a horse, as my invisible Shetland pony Bree would attest), and most interestingly, 7% of imaginary friends acted as an accessory to creative expression. As some of the anonymous participants stated:

‘I often included my imaginary friends as characters in stories, poems, comic strips, pictures and other creative pursuits.’

‘Looking back now it feels like a prelude to the fantasy role-playing and creative writing I moved onto.’

As a child who needed a outlet for my very active imagination, these statements chimed strongly with my own experiences, and even to this day the characters from my novels often feel like real (albeit imaginary – it’s complicated) people.

So play, and Stupid Art, are for many people natural predecessors to more “real” art forms. But it’s a shame that one has to give way so conclusively to the other. What happens to the urge to create Stupid Art when we enter adulthood? What makes it disappear? Is it time constraints, the pressure to be “normal”, or simply growing up? And are some genres more welcoming to making Stupid Art than others? In comedy, for example, is there an easier transition between playing around and creating workable content? What do the comedians out there think?

For me, the real reason I’ve stopped creating Stupid Art is the idea that everything I create needs to be for a purpose. As someone who hasn’t had the most successful of career paths so far, I spend a lot of my time worrying about the need to be useful, and to spend my time in a productive way. Whenever I have an idea, I spend a lot of time worrying about the most worthwhile form in which to execute it, so that the time I spend creating it isn’t wasted. Once I’ve created something, I tend to measure its worth by how far it goes when released into the world – how many people listen to it, buy it, read it or come to see it. But any artist will tell you that art still has value, even if it’s seen by nobody at all. In fact, creating things for the sheer joy of it can make you a better and more accomplished artist in the long run.

So if we get any time at all over the Christmas break, let’s all make a pact to create something useless, worthless, daft and pointless, and to enjoy ourselves immensely while we do it. Let’s make Stupid Art.

Ever since a gig I did this summer at the Phoenix Picturehouse, where local musicians teamed up to perform iconic songs from films, I’ve been thinking a lot about lyrics that must have made perfect sense at the time they were written, but whose meaning has since descended into baffling obscurity. Old films are a great source of these oddities, and there are some good examples among the songs I performed that night.

One of my favourites is the jazz standard “Paper Moon”, originally written in 1933 for the catastrophically unsuccessful musical “The Great Magoo”. In the same year it appeared in a slightly more successful film version of the catastrophically unsuccessful musical “Take a Chance”. It was popularised by Ella Fitzgerald in the 1940s, and finally gave the title to the 1973 Oscar-winning film “Paper Moon”, about a father and daughter conman duo.

It’s a good song, proven by the fact that it managed to withstand such an inauspicious start, and the clever lyrics centre around the idea of the old-fashioned photo studio where customers would pose sitting on a giant crescent moon – something that everyone seemed to be completely obsessed with in the 20s and 30s, to the extent that it’s it seems to have entered into the cultural catalogue of iconic images from the era, and has even become the Dreamworks logo. But there’s one lyric that people always ask me about:

“It’s a Barnum and Bailey world

Just as phony as it could be

But it wouldn’t be make believe if you believed in me.”

What’s “Barnum and Bailey”?

Well, it turns out that the elusive Barnum and Bailey were actually 19th century circus owners, who ran the modestly titled “Greatest Show on Earth”, an iconic institution at the time. So to the 1930s listener, this would have been a universally recognizable reference to all that was showy and fantastical. It’s just one that’s got lost in the mists of time.

But when it comes to songwriting, it’s not a simple task to make your lyrics futureproof. After all, how can we know for sure which turns of phrase will last and which are simply lexical fads? Modern-sounding phrases like to “hang out” or to have “beef” with a wrongdoer have actually been in use since the 1920s (unfortunately for me, “old bean” appears to have stood the test of time rather less well).

Although I’m sure current chart hit “Hotline Bling” isn’t going to become a timeless classic any time soon.

But I digress.

Another example that I’ve (infuriatingly) never been able to get to the bottom of comes from the iconic 1954 film “White Christmas”. Quite apart from a completely baffling (and, for all I know, deeply racist) sequence in which they reminisce about the nebulous ins and outs of a “good old minstrel show”, a subject that was already nostalgic at the time, there’s this lyric in the third-act-dilemma torch song “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me”:

“Love, you didn’t do right by me

As they say in the song

You done me wrong.”

As they say in what song? Why are they even referring to another song within their own song? I can’t even find record of any songs called “You Done Me Wrong” that predate 1954! To use an oft-worn catchphrase, what does it all mean????

There must be countless lyrics like these whose meanings are lost forever, and still more that are simply passed off as nonsense or surrealist through lack of context. I only recently learned that the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland isn’t just a whimsical flight of fancy, or a psychedelic product of Lewis Carroll’s opium-addled mind – well, it is, but it’s also a clever and topical play on words. In the book, the mock turtle is a creature with the body of a turtle, and the head, hooves and tail of a calf. And that’s no coincidence. While the super-rich of the Victorian era dined on real turtle soup, a much more common starter was mock turtle soup, made from – you guessed it – the head, hooves and tail of a calf. It doesn’t take much of a leap of imagination to picture this as an actual creature called the mock turtle. How many other insightful references have since been dismissed as nonsense verse?

(As an aside, I strongly suspect that a lot of David Bowie lyrics from the 1970s fall into this category. Although, he was taking a lot of drugs at the time, so I don’t think even he could tell us for sure.)

Here she is posing on a crescent moon. Told you, didn’t I?

It also gets me thinking – what is it that gets some things remembered as icons, and other things that were equally popular at the time, if not more so, relegated to the cultural oubliette? The present day seems to have, magpie-like, selected almost at random a selection of films/ artists/ songs that they have decided are emblematic of the era, and ignored everything else, regardless of actual popularity at the time. I recently saw a documentary about the silent film actress Clara Bow, who was indisputably the Marilyn Monroe of her era: the inspiration for Betty Boop and the original “It” girl – but who has been retrospectively eclipsed by contemporaries like Greta Garbo.

So what is it that gets some songs remembered, and some forgotten? It’s not like they’re all incredibly specific 1970 – 80s novelty one-hit wonders like The Brat’s “Chalk Dust” (which is, in actual fact, still unaccountably entertaining). That’d be a good topic for a future post, actually – “Things That Were Really Popular At The Time But Have Since Been Completely Forgotten” – at least, it would be if anyone could remember them! Any suggestions, folks?

But there are always some lyrics that make perfect sense regardless of the era. I’ll leave you with a verse from the scandalously ribald “Willow’s Song” from The Wicker Man, pieced together by Paul Giovanni from ancient medieval verse:

I’m delighted to announce that my new-fangled website is now officially up and running! I wish you many happy minutes exploring its pages, some of which may be devoted to projects you never knew I did. Watch this space for upcoming blog posts about music, science, the creative process, old timey stuff and anything in between. My first proper post will be about incredibly specific song lyrics that only made sense in the era they were written, so look out for that little gem!

Welcome to my new-fangled website! As a confirmed technophobe, I’m really quite proud of myself, especially since the design plan started out looking like this. (At which point I nearly gave up and decided to simply photocopy that and glue it to the screen of my computer). Please bear with me while I make it all look pretty and, you know, actually add some content and stuff. Hopefully I’ll soon have the perfect platform for my creative ramblings, so watch this space!